[mythtv-users] bear of little brain

faginbagin mythtv at hbuus.com
Sat May 27 18:04:27 UTC 2017


On 5/27/2017 5:37 AM, James Linder wrote:
> <snip>

This is what I think is the relevant part about Lion.mkv:

>      Stream #0:2(eng): Subtitle: subrip (default) (forced)
>      Metadata:
>        BPS             : 8
>        BPS-eng         : 8
>        DURATION        : 01:48:06.069000000
>        DURATION-eng    : 01:48:06.069000000
>        NUMBER_OF_FRAMES: 281
>        NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 281
>        NUMBER_OF_BYTES : 6843
>        NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 6843
>        _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP: mkvmerge v8.5.2 ('Crosses') 32bit
>        _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v8.5.2 ('Crosses') 32bit
>        _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC: 2017-02-17 10:17:53
>        _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2017-02-17 10:17:53
>        _STATISTICS_TAGS: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
>        _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES

It provides details on the subtitle stream in the file. The statistics 
for the number of frames (281) and number of bytes (6843) are way too 
small for a 1 hour and 48 minute movie. If these numbers are correct, 
there's no way this file has useful subtitles.

But, in your original email you said vlc *does* play them. Which makes 
me wonder if you are asking mythtv and vlc to play the same file.

It appears you have at least two linux machines: one running suse, the 
other running ubuntu. Do these two machines have identical files? You 
can check the file sizes and use md5sum to verify they are identical. If 
they're not identical, there's your answer. If they are identical, I'm 
at a loss. But here are some things you can experiment with:

Play the file using vlc on the mythtv/ubuntu system. Can it still play 
the subtitles?

Use the same tools on both machines to examine the file. I agree with 
Greg about using mkvtoolnix, although since it looks like there's only 
one subtitle stream/track, I don't think the commands he's suggesting to 
alter which tracks are default and/or forced tracks will make any 
difference. Instead,I suggest using the tools to extract the subtitles 
and verify the actual size of the subtitle track/stream. Here's how:

Run the command:
$ mkvmerge --identify Lion.mkv
It should produce output like:
File 'Lion.mkv': container: Matroska
Track ID 0: video (MPEG-4p10/AVC/h.264)
Track ID 1: audio ((AC3/EAC3)
Track ID 2: subtitles (SubRip/SRT)
Chapters: X entries
Global tags: Y entries

What's important is the track number for the subtitles track. In the 
above example, it's 2, and I suspect it will be 2 for your Lion.mkv. Use 
that number in the following command:
mkvextract tracks "Lion.mkv" "2:Lion.srt"
This will extract the subtitles into a file called Lion.srt. If the 
statistics mythffprobe printed are correct, that file will be about 6840 
bytes in size, it will be a text file, and the last few lines will look 
something like:

281
01:00:47,010 --> 01:00:48,711
Some text displayed at the above timestamp.

Let us know what you learn.
Helen


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